Staff profile

I undertook my undergraduate studies in German and French at California State University, Long Beach (USA) where I also completed a master’s degree in German literature.  As an undergraduate, I spent my year abroad at Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Germany.  I undertook my PhD in Modern Languages on a full university scholarship at the University of Hull where I investigated the implications of the separation between language and content in Modern Language degrees on students' development of intercultural competence and criticality.  This was a comparative study involving the German programmes in two US and two UK universities. 

My research and scholarship interests focus on aspects of Intercultural Communication and Foreign Language Education, German language, the separation between language and content at university level, decolonising foreign languages, critical interculturality and the concept of German as a Glocal Language situated within the broader Glocademia framework. 

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and qualified examiner for the Goethe Institut. I am very interested in the promotion of German language and culture in the UK and the development of a critical pedagogy in Foreign Language Education.

I am currently teaching CFLS German Stage 1, the MBA German Language course (part of International Business in Context) and have previously taught German Reading Skills (a course for PhD students who need a reading knowledge of German for their doctoral research).

Authored book

• Parks, E. (2020). Developing Critical Cultural Awareness in Modern Languages: A Comparative Study of Higher Education in North America and the United Kingdom. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429341236

Chapter in book

• Parks, E. (in press). Fostering critical interculturality in foreign language education. In F. Dervin (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Critical Interculturality in Communication and Education. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003513940

Journal Article

• Parks, E. (2023). COVID-19 and Interculturality: revisiting assumptions about intercultural competence and criticality development in Modern Language degree programmes. Language and Intercultural Communication, 23(1), 88-104. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2022.2162065
• Parks, E. (2020). The separation between language and content in Modern Language degrees: implications for students’ development of critical cultural awareness and criticality. Language and Intercultural Communication, 20(1), 22-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2019.1679161
• Parks, E. (2018). Communicative criticalityandsavoir se reconnaître: emerging new competencies of criticality and intercultural communicative competence. Language and Intercultural Communication, 18(1), 107-124. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2017.1401691

Presentation

• Parks, E. (2024, September). Fostering Critical Interculturality in Foreign Language Education. Presented at XVIII CercleS Conference 2024, Durham University - TLC
• Parks, E. (2024, June). Towards a representation of German as a “Glocal Language” – Redesigning the curriculum of two beginner’s language courses at Durham University. Presented at GLOCADEMIA IG - CULTNET Special Interest Group, Online - hosted jointly by Manuela Guilherme (Lisbon, Portugal) and Manuela Wagner (Connecticut, USA)